


Veritas vos Liberabit

by sockpuppeteer



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Silent Hill, Blood and Gore, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 01:48:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12333030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sockpuppeteer/pseuds/sockpuppeteer
Summary: After a long time apart, Gerard pays Frank a long overdue visit, but the road trip Frank convinces him to go on gets them into a whole heap of trouble, takes them somewhere they very much do not want to be, and all too soon everything begins to spiral out of Frank’s control.





	Veritas vos Liberabit

**Author's Note:**

> If spoilers don't both you, READ THE TAGS. Not for the faint-hearted. I will not be held responsible for any complaints from here on in, don't say I didn't warn you! 
> 
> Thanks to BabyAshleyM for betaing and yank-picking this for me even though she hates this kind of thing <3

Endless black stretched on forever outside, with the only light for miles coming from the car’s twin headlamps and rear lights illuminating the road ahead, the path behind, and little else. Frank rested his chin on his palm, elbow propped up on the passenger door, and twisted the radio dial with his other hand. The reception was shitty out here, wherever the fuck ‘here’ was right now, and the crappy rental car they’d got for the trip didn’t even have a cassette player, let alone an aux cord. There was some faint classic rock interspersed with static coming from the speakers though, and anything was better than silence.

“How much further, Gee?”

He saw Gerard shrug one shoulder in his peripheral vision and twist his mouth to one side.

"I'm bored, Gee." he complained, and propped his feet up on the main console for as long as it took for his friend to shoot him a look. Fine, okay, rental deposit. Frank removed his feet.

"Get some sleep," Gerard replied, and continued to stare out at the expanse of empty road ahead, the same road that had looked just as empty for the past two hours.

"I'm not tired. Hey, d'you think we might've taken a wrong turn back at that last gas station?" It really had been a 50/50 toss-up between left and right back then; he'd managed to break the charging cable for their GPS that morning, and he'd also be the first one to admit that his map reading skills weren't exactly up to par.

Gerard flashed him a look that said if Frank was  _ anyone _ other than his best friend in the  _ entire world _ , he'd be out on the side of the road hooking a thumb at passing traffic. At least, Frank hoped that's what it meant, because he didn't  _ want _ to be stuck out here in the middle of the night.

"If you tell me to turn back now that we've been following this road for two freaking  _ hours _ , Frankie, I  _ will _ strangle you." Gerard threatened, and Frank tried his best to look very, very small as the other man continued, "We'll just keep going until the next sign post, and figure out where the fuck we are from there. It can't be much further now."

Frank huffed to himself and settled back in his chair, trying to ignore the numb feeling in his backside. "Why are we even here, anyway?"

"You-" Gerard turned an incredulous gaze on him for a moment, before facing back towards the road, "You have  _ got _ to be fuckin’ kidding me. This was all your genius idea, Mr. Let's-Go-on-a-Road-Trip-It'll-Be-Awesome-I-Promise-Exclamation-Point-Exclamation-Point."

"I just wanted to spend some time with you before you go back home," Frank said, pouting slightly at Gerard's tone. He loved living in Oregon - had ever since his parents moved out here just after he'd turned twenty-two - but he couldn't deny that sometimes he missed home, missed Jersey, missed all his old friends. Gerard had told him he'd had to promise his boss dinner out once a month for the next  _ year _ to get himself a full month off work to come and visit, and Frank wanted to make the most of it. They were into their last week now, and in seven days they'd be back on different sides of the country again.

"Besides," he continued, staring out of the window, "I didn't mean it like that, anyway. I meant why are we- oh fuck,  _ fuck _ , look out!"

Gerard saw the little girl in the middle of the road at the same time as Frank, and swerved violently to the left to avoid hitting her. Frank craned his neck around behind them, searching for her in the darkness as the car spun, but before he could see anything Gerard was swearing and they were careening out of control and tumbling, turning over and over until it there was a deafening crunch of metal and everything went black.

-

When Frank came to, he was hardly able to believe he was still alive. Slowly, he tested his extremities first and worked his way in, flexing and relaxing each muscle, and once he was sure nothing was injured, he risked opening his eyes.

He must have been out for a long time, because soft dawn light filled the car - and made his head throb agonizingly. They were lucky, he realized, the car having landed right-side up, but a heavy mist had settled all around them, so thick he could barely see out of the windscreen. Opening his eyes also meant Frank could see the rest of the car, could see where Gerard should have been in the other seat... and  _ wasn't _ . Rationally, Frank knew this was a good thing, that Gerard wasn't hurt and had probably gone to try and get help, but that didn't prevent the nagging sense clawing at the pit of his stomach.

Carefully, he eased himself out of the car, a little surprised that the door still opened with how mangled the exterior was. Gerard was  _ not  _ going to be happy.

Gerard.

Frank fished his phone out of his pocket and dialled Gerard's number, praying that the flashing red battery would last and that Gerard’s hadn’t died a death either. After a moment that seemed to go on forever, it started ringing, but there was no chance for relief to settle in because Frank could hear the familiar jingle of Gerard's ringtone in his free ear. Peering through the shattered window, he saw Gerard's phone sitting innocently on the seat, screen flashing with an incoming call.

Well, at least if his phone was still there, he couldn't have gone far.

"Gee?" He called out, turning on the spot to try and see something, anything in the surrounding fog, "Gee?!"

There was no answer, so Frank walked a little further out - careful to keep the car in sight - and tried again, and again, getting louder each time until his throat started to ache. No matter how loud he shouted, Gerard didn't answer, and although they weren't averse to winding each other up from time to time, Gerard had never been the kind of person to find any amusement in making someone else anxious. Besides, Frank couldn't imagine Gerard of all people trying to play any kind of prank on him after something like that.

Shouting out once more, more out of desperation than any kind of hope that Gerard would answer him this time, Frank was starting to feel more than a little uneasy. Not only had Gerard apparently wandered off after an accident of this size without him, but he'd left his phone behind too, and - there was a sinking feeling in Frank's stomach as he returned to the car - the car keys were still in the ignition.

Something was definitely not right, and rationality was quickly losing out to worry. Making up his mind, he reached in through the driver's side window, turning off Gerard's phone and leaving it on the seat to conserve the battery in case Gerard returned. The seat was cool, so he must have been gone for a while. It was pretty cold outside though, and Frank shivered as the mist seemed to close in around him. Grabbing his jacket and backpack from the backseat, he rooted around in the trunk and shoved their emergency torch between his teeth. Gerard couldn't have gotten very far without it, not in fog this thick, and without his phone he'd have no way of finding his way back to the car now, whether Frank hung around there or not.

Frank slammed the trunk shut a little harder than necessary and tried to stay calm as he shone the torch around him, turning on the spot. With the slender beam of light, he could see a little further, and he ventured out into the fog to circle the car, part of him hoping that Gerard had felt well enough to get out of the car but collapsed before he could get too far. It was a horrible thought to have, wishing his friend was unconscious, but at least it would mean that Gerard was nearby. The fog was ridiculously thick and Frank didn't think much of his chances of finding the car again if he had to venture too far afield.

Frank's hope didn't last long. He walked as far as he dared in every direction, but there wasn't even a shadow in the distance to indicate Gerard's - or anyone else's - presence. However, just as he was about to give up and head back towards the car, in case he'd missed anything before, the beam of the torch caught something in the ground a few paces away, and when Frank looked a little closer, he could make out footprints in the mud, walking away from the driver's side of the car and up the hill, towards the highway.

The highway, and the little girl they'd almost hit.

He felt stupid and horribly inconsiderate for forgetting about her, and seeing Gerard's boot prints made it suddenly obvious where he'd gone. He'd gone to see if she was okay, and providing it didn't rain too heavily, he'd be able to use the prints to find his way back to the car. It also meant Frank would be able to follow them to find his friend.

Frank mentally crossed his fingers, and started up the hill.

-

Eventually, the ground levelled out, and a few steps later the footprints disappeared, replaced with dull, grey tarmac, complete with angry black skid marks from their tires. There was no body or blood to indicate that they'd hit the girl -  _ what kind of person just stands out in the middle of the road anyway _ \- but the relief Frank felt was short-lived, because it also meant he'd lost his trail.

Cursing softly, Frank shone his light around for any sign of which way Gerard might have gone, and something up ahead caught his eye. Following the road a little further, Frank tried to ignore the way the mist felt like it was urging him forwards and closing in behind him so that he couldn't turn back, because that was just ridiculous, and focused forward instead.

_ Welcome to Silent Hill _ .

The battered, grubby sign loomed out of the fog, and Frank felt a spark of hope. In the surrounding greyness, the town was a beacon, because if Gerard had come this way, he had to have seen the sign too, must be in the town somewhere trying to get help for the girl, or even back to Frank and their car.

Determined to find his friend, Frank trudged on until buildings began to rise up from within the mist. Tall, grey brick structures overshadowed him, with a line of run-down shops that looked like they'd not seen a paintbrush in  _ decades _ on his right, and if he squinted he could just make out another practically identical row on his far left.

It must have been early, because there wasn't a soul in sight. Checking his watch, Frank found the digital numbers totally scrambled, and swore at the stupid piece of junk. Should've stuck to analogue. He tried his phone instead, and cursed again upon finding the screen totally black, battery dead.

"Perfect, just  _ fucking _ perfect..."

"Somethin' wrong?" A voice came from behind him, and Frank spun around, choking down a totally manly cry of surprise.

A dark haired man with a strong jaw and heavy brow looked back at him, dressed in a police officer's uniform. Frank could have hugged him.

"Hi, uh, officer, I think I'm kinda lost," he said with a sheepish smile, "My friend and I got into an accident, and I think he must have come this way to get help. Maybe you've seen him? About five nine, longish dark hair, jeans... He might have a little girl with him, and be a bit scratched up from the accident."

The policeman frowned. "Lost? You sure? I mean, people don't usually just-" he waved a hand in dismissal, "Never mind. Your friend came through here?"

Frank nodded.

The other man hummed softly, "Well, I haven't seen anyone, but if I do I'll be sure to tell him you're here. You got a name?"

"Ah!" Frank nodded apologetically and hurried to introduce himself. " Frank Iero, is me, and my friend's name is Gee – Gerard Way.”

"Bob Bryar," the police officer offered, and turned to leave. "Well, see you around, Iero. I'll keep an eye out for your friend. Be careful."

"Hey!" Frank called after him as his back disappeared through the fog, and broke into a light jog to catch up, "Wait a sec-"

Frank stopped and spun on the spot where he thought Bob should have been if he'd just been walking, eyes searching the mist for the police officer, but there was nothing. He may as well have disappeared.

He cursed again and shoved his useless phone back into his pocket, heading back towards the row of stores for a lack of anywhere else to go. Maybe there would be a signpost somewhere, or someone else who could help him.

Or at least, he thought as he looked at the mist all around him, somewhere to wait until the fog cleared and the town awoke.

When he got a closer look, Frank could see the storefronts weren't just in need of a quick lick of paint. Some of them were totally boarded up, whilst some hadn't even gotten that far, and the glass from the smashed windows was still dusting the concrete. Great, fucking fantastic - his first time in a strange town, and he manages to end up in the dodgy, crime-filled part. 

Deciding to try the other side of the street instead, Frank flicked off his torch – like it was doing a fuckload of good anyway - and stuffed it into his rucksack, wandering across the street without bothering to check for cars in the eerie silence. Before he could make it all the way across, something caught his attention. A soft, distant sound, faint, but definitely there. Turning on the spot and searching for movement in the fog, Frank began to walk towards the sound, hopeful for some other sign of life out here.

"Hello?" He called out as it got louder, becoming a rhythmic shuffle that sounded almost like feet. "Is someone there?"

Up ahead, he caught a flash of movement, and eagerly broke into a jog.

"Hi! Do you think you could help me, I'm looki- oh- holy  _ shit _ ..."

Scrambling backwards, Frank cried out in horror. Whatever the thing shuffling awkwardly towards him was, it certainly wasn't going to be helping him. Wrapped from head to toe in filthy bandages that were falling from its human-esque body, the creature stumbled clumsily towards him. Under the bandages, the flesh was charred black, with deep chunks gouged out leaving ragged, open wounds seeping blood behind. It was like something straight out of a horror movie, except instead of just having to imagine the odor of blood and decay, Frank was choking on it.

It advanced slowly, one unnaturally twisted leg accounting for the noise as the creature dragged it along the ground. Staring in disbelief, Frank could hear it struggling to breathe as it drew closer, each inhale and exhale rattling through a hole in its throat. Remembering to suck in a quivering breath himself, he started backing away as calmly as he could, the slowness of his steps belying the way his heart felt like it was about to burst right out of his chest and skid across the concrete. He fought to keep quiet, and did his best to hide the uneven shakiness of his breath in case any sharp movements would make the thing lash out at him.

He jumped violently when his back hit something solid, but it was only one of the store fronts, and Frank edged along it as quickly as he dared, unable to look away from the creature still staggering ever closer. The doorknob under his hand suddenly felt like a lifeline, and he fumbled with it desperately until it clicked open and he all but fell inside, slamming it shut and casting his eyes around for something to keep it closed without stopping to care why it had been left unlocked in the first place.

The horrifying thing outside thumped into the door and Frank let out a small, terrified sound, knocking over a pile of boxes as he tried to scramble away. But instead of coming inside, it only threw itself into the glass again, arms pawing uselessly at the handle and drawing Frank's attention to the stumps where its hands should have been. It was hardly something Frank would have usually classed as good news, but after being chased into an empty store by a fucking  _ monster _ , his outlook on things had changed.

He couldn't relax, not while that thing was still trying to get to him, and it was hard to stop thinking of all the horrible things it might do when he couldn't even bring himself to tear his eyes away from it  _ just in case _ , held in place by the kind of paralysing terror usually reserved for bad horror movies or huge ass spiders. Frank physically sagged with relief when, eventually, it appeared to give up, turning and dragging itself back off into the mist, only leaving behind a mess of gore that the bandages couldn't soak up smeared across the glass door panels.

He had no idea how long he stood there for, back pressed against the wall, eyes fixed on the point where a piece of charred flesh was slowly sliding down the glass, but eventually he realised he could breathe almost normally again. His heart was still beating a mile a minute, but somehow Frank didn't think that would be changing any time soon.

What the fuck  _ was _ this place.

-

It was a long time before Frank felt confident enough to venture outside again, and even then it was only the thought of Gerard stuck out there alone, and the comforting weight of a crowbar he'd found in the back of the shop in his hands that got him out of the door.

Outside, it was quiet, just like before. Only now, Frank realised it wasn't just quiet. It was  _ too _ quiet, as if silence had settled over the town like a thick, wool blanket. There was no breeze rustling the trees, no distant purr of car engines, no chirping birds or laughing children. There was nothing, nothing at all, just a ghost town on pause.

Frank headed north. Or at least, the direction he hoped was north. There'd been a map, framed on the wall of the shop, but the tatty old thing had been so faded that it was nearly impossible for Frank to read any of the location names, let alone figure out exactly where in the town he was. But, if he'd gotten it right, the police station should be a few minutes away on foot. That was the best place to start looking for Gerard, and if his friend wasn't there, he was at least hoping to find Bob - or another officer - because with that  _ thing _ on the loose, Jesus, he wanted fucking  _ backup  _ next time.

Frank was careful this time, walking in the middle of the street so that it couldn't sneak up on him and drag him into an alley or a gutter or something for breakfast, but for all he could see, it didn't really matter where he walked.

He should have been almost halfway there and was starting to think his overactive imagination and love of horror movies topped off with the accident hadn't been messing with his head, turning some deformed, rabid animal into a monstrous creature, when he heard it. It sounded wet, and violent, and...  _ hungry _ .

This street wasn't half as wide as Frank would have liked it to be, but if he didn't want to walk by whatever was hiding in the fog, his only other option was to try and find a different way to the police station, and that wasn't something he was feeling very confident about with the map still in its frame on the wall of the store.

Moving as quietly as he could, Frank crept forward until the creature came into view. Except there wasn't just one of them anymore, and they were definitely not just strange animals.  _ Three _ of those bloody, bandaged things were huddled around a fourth, their heads bent low as they ripped off bits of its charred flesh like it was a piece of chicken. Frank sucked in a breath before he could stop himself, gripping the crowbar so tightly that it hurt, but the starving creatures were so absorbed with their meal that they didn't appear to notice him.

At least, not until his phone started ringing.

All three of their mangled, hideous heads shot up like trained dogs, and before Frank could even wonder how the hell his phone was ringing when it had no  _ battery _ , one of them leapt at him with the kind of speed he'd been afraid of. He caught it in the chin with his crowbar on reflex, but then another was coming at him, and as soon as he swung it into the second one's stomach, the third was on him, jagged, broken teeth that he hadn't been able to see beneath the bandages sinking into his arm.

" _ Shit! _ " A foot to the solar plexus and a crowbar across its forehead got the thing off him, although it did manage to take a chunk of his jacket - and the flesh underneath - with it. Frank choked down his cry of pain and stared, dumbfounded as the force he'd put behind the crowbar broke the creature's neck and it crumpled to the ground. The other two were on their fallen companion in a flash, and Frank scrambled backwards and ran for the nearest building as the sounds of flesh tearing and the monsters feasting filled the silence around him.

The moment the huge metal doors slammed behind him, Frank stumbled, catching himself on the wall as he emptied the contents of his stomach. The stench of death was still thick around him, as if he couldn't escape from it, and he took several long, calming breaths through his mouth before he could stand. Wiping his lips on the back of his sleeve, Frank grimaced at the taste in his throat and used the light filtering in through the panels in the door to look around..

And promptly vomited again.

The place around him wasn't just old, wasn't just deserted, it must have been something fucking- something straight out of Hell itself. Beneath the few filthy chunks of plaster that were still valiantly - but not too successfully - trying to hang on, the walls were made of chunky, rusted grating that dripped with something viscous that Frank wasn't brave enough to investigate. As he stepped forwards, the floor squelched beneath his boots, and he had to cover his mouth to muffle his cry when something hit his shoulder.

He knew he was going to regret it, but Frank fished his torch back out of his bag, wincing in pain as his bleeding arm throbbed, and tentatively switched it on. The entire entrance hall was covered from floor to ceiling in a layer of brown-black grime - or possibly, he thought with a sickening feeling, it was actually deep, deep red - so thick that it was hard to tell where the dirt ended and where the floor began. Whatever it was dripping down from the grating was coming from the ceiling, too, and lifting a hand, Frank touched one finger to the drop that had landed on his shoulder.

It was still warm.

He stifled whatever sound his body  _ wanted _ him to make until all that came out was a soft whimper, and looked back outside. The creatures were still gnawing on their dead friend, and if he didn't want to have to try and get around them again, he'd have to find another way out of here.

Taking a deep breath, which he soon regretted, and thinking of Gerard, Frank stepped away from the doors.

With his jacket held across his mouth, the smell wasn't  _ so _ bad, although it did force him to notice the way his blood was starting to seep through his clothes. Adrenaline was a wonderful thing, but now he was running out of it, and he'd need to find something to bandage his arm with before it got infected. That certainly wouldn't be difficult in a place like this. He didn't think he'd be able to get used to the wet, gelatinous feel of the floor under his boots though. He tried to imagine a forest, heavy droplets of rain falling from the canopy overhead and onto the ground, thick with damp leaves and mud, and it was easier to walk. Gerard, he just had to keep thinking of finding Gerard and getting the fuck out of this crazy-ass nightmare town.

Around the first corner was what might have once been a receptionist's desk, and a battered, rotting old noticeboard hung from a single nail on the wall. A cluster of chairs, rusted almost as badly as the walls, had been knocked over and left in a heap in the open space opposite the desk, and Frank wondered if what he was standing in was once some kind of waiting room.

Placing the crowbar down, Frank hopefully - or as hopefully as he could, anyway - peered over the top of the desk, reaching over with his good arm and picking up a pair of scissors with his thumb and forefinger. They, just like everything else, were disgusting, but right now they were the best he had.

He held the torch awkwardly between his teeth, and, with a hand that was beginning to feel numb, wiped the scissors on his jeans and pulled his shirt away from his body. He forced the sharp end of the scissors through the bottom, then abandoned them to work a finger into the hole, tearing off a strip as wide as he could manage. Carefully, he shrugged off his jacket, held it under his arm and surveyed the damage. That thing had torn off a wide strip of flesh, but luckily hadn't managed to get its teeth in too deeply through the thick leather.

With a grimace, Frank wound the strip of shirt around his arm as best he could, tying it off with his teeth, then pulled his jacket back on. It wasn't perfect, but for now it would have to do.

He'd barely taken three more steps into the gloom when he remembered his phone - the reason the creatures had heard him – and, as if it had been waiting for him, it trilled again, echoing off the walls and almost deafening in the silence. Answering without a second thought - the battery obviously wasn’t dead after all - there were a few deep, shaking breaths on the other end of the line before he heard someone speak.

_ "Frank? Are you there?" _

"Gerard?" Frank felt like crying with relief just hearing his best friend's voice again, "Oh God, Gee, where are you?"

_ "Frank, you've gotta help me, please," _ Gerard whispered hurriedly,  _ "This place, fuck, it's all wrong, please, we've gotta get out of here..." _

"I know, Jesus fucking Christ I know, just tell me where you are and we can g-" Frank was stumbling over his words, clutching the phone to his ear like a lifeline, but he didn't get to finish before Gerard cut him off with his fierce whispers.

_ "Oh shit... Frank, he's coming back, that- that-  _ **_thing_ ** _ , he's coming back, fuck, fuck, you've gotta help me,  _ **_please_ ** _ Frank..." _

"Gee! Where the fuck are you?! Just tell me where you are, please, I'll help you but you have to tell me where you  _ are _ !"

_ "Frankie, Frank you have to stay away from the school, it's not sa-" _ Gerard broke off and yelped, then there was a scraping of metal-on-metal and his friend cried out wordlessly before the line went dead.

"Gee?" Frank hissed, voice getting louder with every moment his phone was silent, "Gee? Gerard?!  _ Fuck _ !" He threw the phone in anger and buried his face in his hands as it slammed into the wall, clattering to the floor in pieces. He whimpered, " _ Fuck. _ "

After a few moments, Frank squared his jaw and straightened with a vicious look in his eyes. Gerard wasn't the kind of person to surrender blindly, and Mary may as well damn his soul if he didn't do everything in his power to get his friend back and make the thing that was threatening Gerard fucking  _ pay _ .

Snatching up the crowbar again, Frank strode through the building with renewed determination, paying no mind to the horrors he caught out of the corner of his eye on the way. He forced open any closed doors and let them clang back against the walls, finding empty room after empty room, some housing rusty machinery and filing cabinets, some with old metal hospital beds that dripped with the putrid sludge that was still falling from the ceiling -  _ it's not blood, it's not blood, it  _ **_can't_ ** _ be _ \- and when two more monstrosities found him, their bare, rotting flesh barely held together by their ruined nurse's scrubs, eyes and mouths sewn shut so they had to feel their way towards him with outstretched arms, he barely slowed as he beat them down and carried on. He was a man with a purpose, calling out Gerard's name as he went, over and over as loudly as he could, uncaring of what he was attracting by making so much noise and utterly single-minded in his need to find his friend. The stairs rattled beneath his boots, the bare metal clanking loudly as he moved between floors, shoving at anything that got into his way and bulldozing on, not even bothering to stop and check if they weren't moving any more. Let them follow. He was stronger and faster and, more importantly, fucking  _ angrier _ .

Frank was on the third floor when he heard it - a sharp, muffled scream from further down the hall. Breaking into a run, Frank raced toward the sound and burst in through the door, stopping dead once he saw what was inside.

Gerard was there all right, on his back on one of the sullied operating tables. His arms, waist and legs had been bound to it, leaving him prone and spread-eagled. A figure in a torn up lab coat leaned over his lower half with a knife longer than Frank's legs, ruthlessly hacking away at Gerard's knee as Gerard screamed. Gerard's face was screwed up in indescribable agony, his cries and howls echoing off the walls as he fought against his restraints, and Frank could see that the bottom of one leg was nothing but a messy, bloody stump where Gerard's foot had once been.

With a yell, he launched himself at the sick excuse for a doctor, but before he could do any sort of damage he was knocked away with the back of an arm, thrown into the wall like he was nothing. Frank's good arm cracked against the metal, but his own shout of pain was lost beneath Gerard's shrieks, and Frank pushed himself to his feet, shaking off the wave of dizziness and thinking of nothing but making it  _ stop _ . He ran at it again, and again was swatted away like a bug, but the third time, he caught the doctor's side with his shoulder, and the figure stumbled. Frank's accomplishment was short lived though, when it turned on him with a feral snarl, and he could see that the half of the doctor's face that wasn't completely gone was burned beyond recognition, blood splattered across it with hair that fell from his head in chunks and stuck up in messy tufts. This time when he was thrown off, Frank sailed through the air a little way and cracked his head on the wall. His vision swam as he crumpled to the floor, head spinning and bile rising in his throat while Gerard's cries began to fade, losing their intensity. Before Frank could get up again, Gerard’s drawing arm thunked uselessly to the floor, and Gerard finally fell silent as Frank passed out.

-

When Frank came to, it was light again, and he groaned softly.

"Finally awake then."

Frank jumped about three feet into the air when he heard the voice, and found Bob perched on a faded but perfectly clean-looking surgical table, arms folded across his chest and staring down at him. Frank was half way through sitting up when everything came back to him in a rush of terror and panic, and he felt his stomach convulse, bile rising to the back of his throat now that there was nothing else there.

"My friend-" He starts, voice cracking as he gasped for breath that he couldn't draw, "He- he was, oh my God, one of those things, it had him and it was- he was-"

"Iero..."

"It it- cut him up, and I couldn't stop it, it was so  _ strong _ and I think it broke my arm, and-"

"Iero, your arm is fi-"

"I couldn't do anything to help him, he just  _ screamed _ -" Frank stifled a whimper and blinked back tears that stung at his eyes.

"Iero, if you don't shut up I'm gonna put a bullet through your arm and then it really  _ will _ be useless. Just stop. Breathe."

"What..." Frank paused in his hysterical tirade, confused, and sucked in a shaking breath before he looked down at his arms, both of which he was using to hold himself up off the floor. The more he concentrated on his breathing, a steady in-out-in-out, the clearer things became until he could focus properly without feeling like he was going to suffocate on his panic. Neither of his arms actually  _ hurt _ , his clothes were clean, and the arm of his jacket was still fully intact, as was the part of his shirt he remembered tearing off to bind his forearm with. He was still sitting where remembered falling before, several feet away from the door and facing the table Gerard had been bound to, but the grime, the blood, everything was gone. Now, there was dusty white plaster covering the up grating that had formed the walls, cool, grey tiles on the floor and more white plaster on the ceiling. Nothing dripped down onto him, the floor was clean beneath him, and all the blood, all that blood that had been pooled beneath the table was nowhere to be seen.

But neither was Gerard.

"What the fuck?"

Bob dropped down off the table - which was now covered with a fresh white sheet - and sighed as he held out a hand for Frank to take, looking for all the world like it physically pained him to do such a thing.

"I was headin' back to the station, and heard someone shouting, so I came to check it out. Found you collapsed right there, out cold. Should've just left you there if you ask me."

Frank heaved himself to his feet and cast his eyes about some more, lifting a hand to brush over the plaster on the walls. "What... what about my friend?"

Bob shrugged, "You were the only one here."

"But this place, it... It wasn't...  _ I _ wasn't..." Frank fumbled for something to say, some way to describe what he had seen but came up blank. Bob seemed to understand though, if the slightly sympathetic look he gave Frank were any indication.

"This place seriously fucks with your head." He said simply, before his gaze turned hard, "But tell me somethin'. What are you really doing here?"

Frank frowned, already struggling to get his head around what the police officer was talking about. "What? I told you before, we got into an accident."

" _ Accidents _ don't happen here. People don't just end up here without a reason, Iero, and if you ever wanna see your friend again I suggest you start thinkin' real hard and figure out exactly what  _ your _ reason is."

-

The more Frank tried to think about it, the more he began to believe that he really was going crazy. Everything had seemed so real, from the...  _ whatever _ it was dripping down from the ceiling, to the broken arm and the sounds of Gerard's agony… but there was no evidence of it anywhere. No blood, no body,  _ nothing _ . Just a plain, if slightly deserted hospital.

He still hurried to follow Bob outside, and of course there wasn't any trace of the creatures that had been hiding in the mist either. They walked in silence, the only sound the thud of their feet on the concrete. That hadn't stopped Frank bringing the crowbar with him, just in case. Bob had wanted to take Frank back to the station with him, where he was late for his shift, but Frank had been adamant that he was going to the local high school first. If he had really imagined everything about the time he'd spent inside the old hospital, then there would be nothing out of the ordinary at the school, and he would have no reason to have to stay away from it. Frank  _ needed _ to know that he'd imagined everything that had happened, because if he hadn't, that meant Gerard wasn't leaving this place with him.

As badly as he wanted to hear Gerard's voice, more than anything else Frank  _ needed _ to know that that hadn't been real.

The school itself looked normal enough from the outside, made of dull, grey brick just like everything else in this place, with huge windows lining the front and stone steps in the centre leading up to the main entrance. Carved into the stone archway above the doors was what Frank assumed to be the school's motto:  _ veritas vos liberabit _ [1] . Whatever the fuck that meant.

"So, are you coming in-" he started, turning to ask if Bob had his back, but the other man wasn't where he'd been standing thirty seconds before. In fact, he wasn't anywhere to be seen at all, the mist hovering like a blindfold across Frank's eyes.

"Dude," Frank breathed softly, a little bothered that Bob hadn't even mentioned that he'd be leaving. Again. Asshole. He tried not to let it bother him though - he had far more important things to worry about.

The doors swung open easily, almost as if they were beckoning him inside, and Frank took a moment to steel himself for whatever horrors could be waiting for him, holding his breath until the heavy oak hit a wall. He lifted the torch to shine a bright beam of light into the darkness, and found... nothing. Faded paint peeled from the walls in places and the tiles underfoot had certainly seen better days, but there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary in here, either.

Frank's heart soared, and he heaved a sigh of relief, stepping inside and letting the big doors swing shut behind him. There was no harm in checking it out while he was here, after all.

Metal combination lockers lined the hallway between the doors to the classrooms, and peering through a few of the glass panels as he passed them, Frank could see blackboards and filing cabinets and neat rows of desks and chairs inside, just as he'd expected. He was about to turn back, ready to head up to the police station now - Gerard wouldn't have gone to the school himself, after all - when he caught sight of one row of lockers, the bottom corner dented where someone had probably kicked it in frustration, and was overcome with a sudden wave of nostalgia as he remembered one of his old school friends doing the same thing to their own lockers when he couldn't remember his combination.

Frank had never been a big fan of school while he was there, and it was only once he'd dropped out to look for a job instead that he realised just how much he missed it. His locker had always been a bit of a safe haven, somewhere he could store things he wanted to keep away from prying eyes - like when he'd first started smoking and he'd hidden his cigarettes there so that his parents wouldn't find them. He'd bought a safe to keep at home once he'd left school, but it wasn't the same - it made his parents suspicious straight away, and refusing to let them see inside would have just made things worse.

Maybe it was the lingering sense of security his mind still associated with school that stopped him leaving straight away, but Frank couldn't explain why he stepped closer to the lockers and counted in six from the left, then lifted his free hand to try out the combination. He'd turned last digit into place by the time he realised what he was doing and pulled his hand away, but by then the locker had already clicked open.

"What the fuck..." Frank muttered to himself, running a hand along the side of the locker as it swung open. There was a Black Flag flyer tacked to the inside of the door with a phone number scrawled across the bottom of it that belonged to his first girlfriend; Frank remembered writing it there so that he wouldn't lose it after her friend had passed it to him on a scrap of paper in the hall.

He really  _ was _ going crazy.

At first glance, the rest of the locker looked empty, but sitting in the shadows at the bottom was a plain-looking file and, on top of it, his old day-planner. He'd never really used it - and had gotten in plenty of trouble when homework wasn't done and deadlines were missed - but it had his name on the front, and the skull-come-pumpkin he’d scrawled on on the back, and he stuck the torch between his teeth so that he could pick it up. Flipping through it, it was mostly empty, just like he remembered, a few phone numbers and the occasional date scribbled here and there - probably for  _ actual _ dates instead of any kind of useful deadlines - and, tucked in towards the back, a pair of cinema tickets with a bright yellow memo stuck to the page beneath them.

_ Movies w G, 6pm _

It wouldn't normally be the kind of thing Frank would have noticed as being particularly strange - they'd been to see countless movies together, after all, and lived in a similar area of town throughout their teenage years despite going to different schools. But it was the date on the tickets themselves that made Frank double-take.

It was  _ today's _ date. As if everything he'd seen so far, including the fact that he'd just found his old locker in a school 3,000 miles away from his hometown, wasn't weird enough already.

The file he'd found underneath his planner was a pretty nondescript, boring grey, just like the rest of this place, except for a small strip in the top right-hand corner with a name printed on it in black ink.

_ Iero, F _ .

Switching the planner in his hands for the file, Frank flipped it open. It was sparse, only a few sheets of paper inside, and they'd all been neatly typed and printed on crisp, white paper.

 

Patient Name:

| 

Frank Iero  
  
---|---  
  
Date of Birth:

| 

10/31/1981  
  
Hometown:

| 

Belleville, NJ  
  
Current City:

| 

Medford, OR  
  
Next of Kin:

| 

Linda Iero (Mother)  
  
 

Before Frank could read any further, there was movement in the door to the classroom next to him -  _ was that open before? _ \- and he looked up, startled as he snatched the torch from his mouth to illuminate the doorway.

"Frank."

"Gee!" File all but forgotten, Frank's face lit up almost as brightly as the torch at the sight of his very much  _ alive _ best friend. It only lasted a moment though, because Gerard didn't look nearly as pleased to see Frank as Frank  _ thought _ he should, given the circumstances.

"Gee?" Frank asked softly, "What's up?"

Gerard's eyes flickered down to the file Frank was still holding, then lifted his gaze back up to Frank's face again, looking very, very solemn. "You shouldn't be here." He glanced down the corridor into the darkness, "It's not safe."

"What do you-" Frank paused as he realised Gerard's words were sounding horribly familiar, "You... What's going on?"

"I can't explain it, Frank, but you need to go, now."

_ You _ , Gerard kept saying, not  _ we _ . Frank had always had a stubborn streak, and it was rather prone to surfacing when he was being told what to do. "I'm not going anywhere without you."

"You have to go, and you have to put that back," Gerard said, nodding towards the file, but he didn't move out of the doorway to stop Frank flicking through it again, just got a deeply sad look in his eyes. "It's... private."

"It's  _ mine _ , Gerard, that's my name on the top, and it was in  _ my _ locker. What the fuck is my locker even  _ doing _ here anyway?!" Frank was beginning to feel slightly frenzied, and for once Gerard's presence and the fucking mysterious way he was talking was only making it worse.

"Please, Frank, just for once, do what I say," Gerard pleaded, but Frank was already reading through the papers again.

 

>           _Since admission on October 23rd, 2012, patient has been reluctant to settle..._
> 
>  

"What..."

"Frank, please put it back..."

 

>           _Patient seems to be experiencing a severe state of denial, with little to no memory of the incident._
> 
>  

"Come on, Frank, just leave it, please."

 

>     _...extended periods of psychosis, patient has become withdrawn and appears to be losing touch with reality..._
> 
>  

"Frank,  _ please _ ..."

"What the hell is this about, Gerard?"

"Frank-"

It was the tone of his friend's voice that really got Frank's attention then, so small all of a sudden, and holding a distinct edge of terror. He looked up from the notes, head spinning, only to come face to face with the macabre excuse for a doctor he'd seen before in the hospital, burns twisting and mangling his face, pressing a long, bloody blade against Gerard's throat.

"I told you not to come," Gerard whispered, dark eyes swimming with unspeakable grief, and before Frank could so much as move a muscle Gerard was crumpling forwards like a ragdoll, blood streaming from the gash across his neck and spreading steadily outwards on the floor around him. Frank dropped to his knees with a cry, the file falling, forgotten, into the rapidly widening pool of Gerard's blood and the torch light dying as it clattered to the floor as he scooped up his friend's body, desperately trying to stop the flow with his hands. There was so much blood, so much that Gerard was choking on it, so much more than before,  _ too much  _ all over Frank's hands and his clothes and the floor, and all he could do was hold on and watch in the dark as the shine left Gerard's eyes.

"Gee," Frank sobbed helplessly, his best friend's body lifeless in his arms, and buried his face in Gerard's hair, "Not again, please, I'm sorry, oh fuck, Gerard, I'm so sorry..."

"Hey."

Frank could feel Gerard's warmth fading and clutched onto his limp form even tighter, as if he could transfer the life from himself by mere proximity.

"Hey!"

Blinking frantically, Frank lifted his head, only to find the area around him suddenly light and his arms empty. All of the blood that he'd touched, smelled,  _ felt _ , all of it had totally disappeared, along with the body he'd been holding so tightly.

"What..." He started, instinctively lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the beam of torchlight.

"Come on, man, you've gotta stop doin' this," Bob's voice said, and he lowered the torch a little so that Frank could see his face.

"What...?" Frank said again, and Bob gestured with the torch, the light bouncing off the floor and walls as it shifted, as if Frank should somehow know what he meant.

Hastily wiping wet cheeks, Frank pushed himself up on shaky legs and faced the police officer with the kind of anger borne from total despair.

"What  _ is _ this place?" He demanded, "What the fuck is going on? Why do I keep watching my friend  _ die _ right in front of me? Is this someone's idea of a sick fucking joke?!"

Bob didn't move, just glared right back at him. "You really think that's it? That someone's playin'a fucking game with you? A  _ game _ ? Are you havin'  _ fun  _ yet, Iero?!"

Lashing out with a growl, Frank threw his fist into Bob's face, catching his cheek hard. The other man stumbled backwards, torch light dancing on the ceiling, but didn't go down. Straightening up again, Bob brought a hand to his jaw to cradle it gently as he tested it for movement, then fixed Frank with a look.

"Feel better?"

Frank let out a single syllable of humourless laughter. "What the fuck do you think?" He didn't even bother asking why Bob was here this time, because he sure as hell didn't care. Scrubbing at his face with both hands, Frank let out a heavy sigh and swallowed carefully before he felt a little more together. He watched as Bob picked up Frank's torch - the only thing that was still where it had fallen. The file he'd been reading, that had felt so solid and real in his hands, was nowhere to be seen, and although the locker he'd gotten into was still open there was nothing to hint that it had been anything like his old school locker - there was no poster, no number, no planner, just an empty, grey school locker. Even the dent in the bottom corner had vanished.

"Come on," Bob said, turning to shine his own beam of light back towards the front doors, "Let's go."

Following close behind, Frank stuffed his hands into his pockets now that the police officer had his torch, and was tapping the side on his wrist and fumbling with the batteries to try and get it working again. Scraping his nails against the denim lining for something to focus on that wasn't what he'd just witnessed, his fingers brushed up against something as he pushed his hands down a little deeper, and he pulled it out as Bob pushed the great oak doors open and they stepped out into the dim light.

One pair of cinema tickets, dated today.

Frank would have preferred to think he was going crazy than find proof of what had just happened in there - he couldn't bring himself to think of it, even for a second. He definitely didn't remember putting them in his pocket, and was almost certain he'd left them inside the planner - which he'd set back down in his locker - but the alternative was much less attractive. If  _ he _ hadn't pocketed them, how had they got in there?

Something about this place wanted him to go to that movie theater and there was a good chance that it was the same thing that kept making him watch his friend die. It worried him slightly that he was genuinely considering that as a possibility. Maybe he really had died in that car accident, and this was how he was destined to live out the rest of his hellish existence. But if he was, then Frank wasn't going down without a fight.

He was going to that movie theater.

-

Frank made sure Bob stuck with him this time, torn between being glad to have some kind of company through this and not trusting him as far as he could throw him. Bob always seemed to abandon Frank just when he needed him, only to turn up again when it was too late. But he knew the town, and when another rotting, bandaged lump of flesh lumbered towards them and Bob pulled out his gun and shot it in the head without a second thought, Frank decided the police officer could most definitely stay.

The theater was just as deserted as the rest of this place, but the building itself wasn't just quiet; it looked like it should have been condemned years ago. Half of the great, domed roof had caved in, taking a good portion of the walls with it, but the front still seemed mostly intact, and the last movie shown -  _ The Day the Earth Stood Still _ , Frank snorted silently - was still mostly spelled out on the old-fashioned display above the entrance.

The inside wasn't much better either. There was barely enough of the carpet left for Frank to be able to tell what the pattern had once been, and in some places, the floorboards had rotted so badly they'd fallen in, leaving great, gaping holes in the floor and nothing but darkness underneath. With only Bob's torch - he hadn't managed to get Frank's working again - and blind optimism, they slowly picked their way through the main lobby, sticking close to the walls where the floor was likely to be the strongest. Frank retrieved a relatively long piece of broken floorboard as they went, and was soon glad for it when they rounded a corner and came face to face with another hideously disfigured creature. Frank only got a glimpse of the armless, faceless thing, skin pulled tight around its entire upper half like some kind of straight jacket, before it lunged, and Bob, still holding the torch, was too slow going for his gun. The monstrous figure knocked him to the ground, the floorboards creaking dangerously beneath him, before starting towards Frank, who swung the board at its body with as much strength as he could muster. It staggered with a grunt, but kept on coming, and Frank backed up as quickly as he dared, praying desperately that the floor beneath him held. The second time he swung at it, he missed completely, the momentum almost throwing him off balance, but the third time hit home with a dull  _ thwack _ to the side of its head. The creature fell to the side, and Bob, who was now on his feet, gave it one final shove, sending it tumbling over the edge of the floor and down into the darkness. Frank strained his ears, but never heard it hit the bottom.

"What the fuck  _ are _ these things," Frank gasped, lowering his makeshift weapon as Bob handed him the torch so that he could keep his gun in his hand.

The other man shrugged, "Your guess is as good as mine, buddy. I ain't ever seen 'em before, not until you turned up."

Frank's eyes narrowed slightly and he bristled. "What the fuck? It's not  _ my _ fault these things are here!"

"Woah, man," Bob held his hands up in surrender, gun pointed towards the ceiling, "Didn't say it was."

Frank sighed, wilting. "Sorry. Sorry, it's just... all this... Sorry."

The theater only seemed to house two screens, one on either side of the lobby, and the one on the right was all but destroyed where the ceiling had collapsed. Two more creatures appeared almost out of the woodwork as they turned to cross to the other screen, which Frank beat off until Bob could fire two more shots into their heads, and then another, angrier, one fell out at them when Frank pulled open one of the double doors that led to the screen itself. It was too close for him to hit, barrelling into him like a freight train and knocking him back into Bob's chest. The only thing he could be grateful for as he shoved it as hard as he could - driving the plank of wood into its chin to snap its neck - was that these, unlike the others, didn't have teeth.

"Why are there so many of them in here?" He asked with a shiver, wondering if the kick of adrenaline he was running on would need to last out any more of these things.

"Maybe they don't want you going in there," Bob chuckled, and Frank's stomach roiled anxiously.

"All I want to do is find my friend and get the fuck out of this place," he said, voice as steady as he could make it. "Wherever this town is,  _ what _ ever it is, I don't care anymore, I just want to go home..."

Nevertheless, he had to find Gerard first. Pressing his ear to the second set of doors, Frank's heart thundered in his chest as he listened hard for anything that might be waiting for them. When he heard nothing, he took a deep breath and pushed his way through.

Immediately shining the torch in as many directions as possible as quickly as he could, Frank sagged in relief to find the theater empty. Rows and rows of plush seats upholstered in red velvet were laid out before them, leading up to a huge screen at the other end of the room, but there wasn't any sound of shuffling feet, no muffled groaning and grunting, and no teeth tearing into flesh.

Silence had never been so sweet.

But he'd found those tickets, and something in Frank's gut told him he was supposed to be here. He heard Bob step inside just behind him, then the doors swung closed with a decisive thud, and, despite the size of the theater, Frank felt claustrophobia beginning to set in.

Breathing carefully in through his nose and out through his mouth, Frank started down one of the aisles, shining the light up along each row as he passed it. The first few were as empty as they'd first looked, but almost a third of the way down, the light glinted off something on the floor in front of one of the seats. Bob was close behind him as Frank shuffled down the aisle, and kept an eye out for anything that might be trying to get in their way while Frank's focus was elsewhere. The closer Frank got to the middle of the row, the louder his pulse echoed in his ears as he gradually began to see just what it was.

He bent down to pick it up, and shone the light directly onto it, plunging the rest of the theater into near-darkness as he stared. He'd bought three identical silver rings just before he'd left New Jersey, keeping one for himself and giving the other two away; one to Jamia, and one to Gerard. Hands shaking, Frank used his index and middle finger to turn it so he could see the inside, heart sinking as he shone the light through it, where he'd engraved a single initial on each one.

_ G _

This one was Gerard's.

"Hey," Bob shook Frank's shoulder, "Hey, look."

Closing his fingers around the ring, Frank turned to see what Bob was pointing at, only to find that the torch light wasn't the only thing illuminating the theater now. The giant screen, flanked by two heavy red curtains, had flickered to life, casting the room in a dull glow as the projector above their heads whirred and clanked softly, and a film began to play.

The scene was startlingly familiar, the camera focusing in on what Frank knew to be Gerard's car number plate before it pulled back and the whole car came into view, pitch-black sky surrounding the car's headlamps, the two sole sources of light. It zoomed in closer, and Frank could see Gerard in the passenger seat, chin propped up on his hand as he flipped from station to station, trying to find one that worked.

_ "I'm bored, Frank," he grumbled, lifting his knees to his chest so that he could rest his feet on the glove compartment. _

_ "Get some sleep," Frank replied, gaze fixed resolutely on the road ahead. _

_ "I'm not tired. Hey, d'you think we might've taken a wrong turn back at that last gas station?" _

"What the hell..." Frank breathed, staring up at the shimmering images as an uncomfortable kind of realization began to trickle through.

"Dude, that's you, right?" Bob asked, but when Frank opened his mouth to reply, nothing came out.

_ "If you tell me to turn back now that we've been following this road for two freaking  _ **_hours_ ** _ , Gee," _ Frank was saying on-screen,  _ "I  _ **_will_ ** _ strangle you. We'll just keep going until the next sign post, and figure out where the fuck we are from there. It can't be much further now." _

Every fiber of Frank's being was screaming at him to look away, to stop watching something when he already  _ knew _ what was going to happen. Except he wasn't sure he did, really, faced with two totally conflicting moments - one, a fuzzy memory that was getting harder and harder to recall the more he tried, and  _ that _ , that flickering, bleached-out version of events that was gradually coming more into focus, the colours brighter, the image clearer.

Frank tore his eyes away when he saw the little girl in the middle of the road, just  _ standing _ there in her nightdress, and scrunched them shut, unable to watch any more. Except he could  _ still _ see it playing out behind his eyelids, except he wasn’t just an onlooker any more. He was sitting in the driver's seat, knuckles white around the wheel as Gerard shouted out and he swerved. The sound of their tires on the concrete screeched in his ears, and when he covered them to try and block it out, it wouldn't stop.

Frank hunched forwards, dropping to his knees between the seats because that wasn't right, that wasn't it, that wasn't how it  _ happened _ , god fucking dammit. Except it  _ was _ how it happened, and it wasn't a movie he was watching any more, it was a  _ memory _ . Frank remembered how his seatbelt had cut into his neck, remembered the way his body had been thrown around as the car fell, turning over and over until they hit the bottom, remembered how the windscreen had shattered and he'd cracked his head on the steering wheel, almost blacking out from the pain.

_ Almost _ blacking out, because the next thing he remembered was looking over at Gerard with bleary eyes and finding his best friend covered in blood.

They'd been alone on the road for hours. They hadn’t seen another soul or even a turn in the road for miles. Frank was still wearing his seatbelt…

But Gerard wasn't.

"No, no," Frank could hear himself mumbling, over and over, muffled inside his head because of the hands still pressed tightly over his ears. It was like the voice was coming from someone else, and he couldn't make it stop. "That's not how it happened, not like that,  _ no _ ."

Through his own repetitive delirium, Frank felt someone looming over him, and raised a tear-streaked face to tell Bob to back the  _ fuck _ off - but in the dull light from the screen, Frank saw that it  _ wasn't _ Bob hovering over him. With a soft cry, Frank scrabbled for purchase on the floor to pull himself backwards, but the grotesque nurse with her decaying flesh, thick, black thread forced through her bloody eyelids and lips to keep them closed, was just too close. She bore down on him without remorse, getting an inhumanly strong hand around his throat, and straddled Frank's waist, her legs twisted at impossible angles. Frank shouted, bucked, yelled, but as ever Bob wasn't there to come to his rescue, and he might as well have been laying totally motionless for all the good his fighting seemed to do. She pulled out a thick syringe, filled to the brim with a disgusting, putrid fluid, and lowered the tip to Frank's neck, shoving the rusted tip through his flesh.

Frank screamed out in pain and jerked helplessly in her hold, and as soon as she pressed down and that foul excuse for medicine began to disappear into his veins, everything around him faded and disappeared with it.

-

Flashes of brightness cut through the darkness, white, a woman, a needle, and Frank was struggling, struggling so hard and surrounded by so many voices that they made his head ache.

"Frank, you need to calm down."

"Just relax, and you'll be fine."

"Stop fighting it, Frank, it's okay, everything's okay."

Frank couldn’t move his arms and legs, and for all his struggling he was losing strength fast, every muscle getting heavier and heavier until he could only lay there, boneless as his eyes fluttered closed again.

-

"Frank? Are you awake?"

When Frank opened his eyes again, he immediately squeezed them shut against the blindingly bright light. He could hear his name being called softly in a low, soothing voice, and he groaned, wondering where he'd woken up  _ this _ time.

"Welcome back," the voice said, and Frank grunted softly, head pounding and filled with a mass of cotton and confusion. "I'm going to release your arms and legs now, okay?"

Frank grunted wordlessly again, still too distracted by the pain behind his eyes to listen too closely, and felt the pressure around his ankles and wrists ease up. He pushed himself into a sitting position, then swooned as the sudden movement made everything feel ten times worse. Retching, Frank automatically heaved his upper body to one side so that the wave of nausea he was suddenly overcome with didn't soil his clothes.

While he was still gasping for breath, a glass was pushed into his hand, and Frank gulped half of it down without a second thought. The cool water helped to clear his head slightly, and he risked lifting his eyes to see where he was.

The room he was in was very, very white. White walls, white ceiling, white floor, even the bed he was sitting on and the clothes he was wearing were white. The light bounced off everything, making his headache worse.

"How are you feeling?" The voice came again, and Frank turned towards it instinctively.

"What?"

"I asked how you were feeling. Are you well?"

"Where am I?" Frank asked, ignoring the question. He rubbed at his eyes and winced when the motion made his wrists throb, then finally looked at the other person in the room with him. Or other  _ people _ , he realised with a start, when he noticed a burly-looking man standing by door. He’d been so quiet that Frank hadn't even noticed him before. The other person, the one who had been talking to him so calmly, was an older-looking man with short, dark hair and a long white coat over his gray suit. He seemed startlingly familiar, and it was only when Frank got a good look at his face - and the prominent, burn-like birthmark that covered the left side of it from temple to jaw - that he realised why.

"You-" Frank whispered before he could get a reply, and scrambled backwards on the bed until his back hit the wall, "You, you get the  _ fuck _ away from me. What have you done with my friend?"

"What friend, Frank?" The doctor asked gently, and Frank resisted the urge to throw up again as he remembered the horrific, garish version of this man he'd seen before.

"Gerard, the one you- you sick fucking- you- where is he?"

"Don't worry about Gerard for now. Let's just focus on you for a moment," he said, voice so low and calming that Frank couldn't help but relax, hating himself for it even as it happened.

"No, let's  _ not _ focus on me,” Frank pushed back. “I'm so fucking  _ sick _ of all of this bullshit! How about you just tell me where my friend is and then leave me the  _ fuck _ alone." Frank was angry, but he still felt too sluggish to do much more than glower at the other man as menacingly as he could.

"You need to calm down, Frank, or we'll be forced to sedate you, and I really don't want to have to do that again."

Frank seethed silently and gritted his teeth, but made an effort to do as he was told for once; he really didn't want anything else injected into him again.

"Where is Gerard?"

The doctor sighed softly. "I'm afraid Gerard hasn't been around for a long time, Frank."

Frank glared, "Just how long are we talking about here?"

"Since just before you came to us, five years ago."

"Five  _ years _ ?" Frank exclaims with a short burst of laughter, "Don't be stupid. I was with him yesterday, he's been here for weeks."

"I'm afraid you've been barely conscious for just over three weeks now, Frank. We were beginning to feel concerned."

" _ Concerned _ ?!" Frank burst out, choosing to ignore the comment regarding his state of apparent responsiveness, " _ You _ were concerned? I've just watched  _ monsters _ kill my friend.  _ Twice _ ." Even as he said it, remembered the pain on Gerard's face and his friend's terrible, heartbreaking screams, Frank was feeling distinctly detached from the memories themselves, unwilling or unable to put any faith or belief in  _ anything _ he thought he'd seen just yet.

"Frank, that man, your friend, he's not real. Not anymore. He's a memory, that's all, and if you come back to us, he won't get hurt anymore." The doctor was speaking so calmly, so logically, that part of Frank wanted terribly to believe him, to trust that none of it was real and that this,  _ this _ place without all that terror and pain was really, really real, but part of him... after everything he’d seen… just trust it.

"Gerard's real." He said firmly, "He's not just some imaginary friend I dreamed up, alright?"

"Of course not," the doctor said sincerely, "He was very real, and he was your friend. But the two of you got into an accident late at night, do you remember?"

Frank tried to pretend he hadn't heard the way the doctor was referring to Gerard in the past tense. "We did, and he disappeared. I need to find him."

"He didn't disappear, Frank. He was hurt, badly. I'm sorry, Frank. Gerard didn't make it."

"What? No, that wasn't real, none of it was  _ real _ . Gerard's been here for three weeks, and we got into an accident, but he was  _ fine _ , he got out of the car and he- those  _ things _ , those monsters, and you-  _ you _ -" His mind had turned into a jumble of images and details and events, Frank was struggling to put everything together now. Every time the doctor spoke, he just added more confusion and tangles to the mess in Frank’s head.

"Just... Just cut the crap, okay, this is all fucking  _ crazy _ ."

"You know I'm telling you the truth, Frank. Some part of you remembers, and knows that I'm not lying to you." The doctor sounded so sure of himself that for a moment, Frank almost believed him.

"...I can't stay here."

"Of course not," the doctor replied with a small smile, "Our aim here is to help you recover so that you  _ can _ leave, so that you can go back home."

"No, that's not... No. I need to help Gerard, I can't stay here like this..."

"Frank... The monsters aren't real," The doctor said calmly, but Frank could detect a hint of frustration in his voice, "There's nothing else out there, Frank, truly. Throughout your time with us, you've created physical visions of your own demons, your anger and your self-hatred and your pain, and they keep hurting your friend, over and over again. It's time to come back to us, Frank, to remember what reality feels like and leave that place behind for good so you can get better, so you can go home, Frank."

Frank wanted to go home, God, more than anything, he wanted to. He never wanted to see another of those disfigured, nightmare-ish creatures for as long as he lived.

But it wasn't that easy.

"What if you're wrong?" Frank asked, voice small and the quietest he'd been since he'd awoken. "What if  _ this _ is all in my head, here, what if I'm wishing for a way out of that place so badly that I've created the perfect escape? What if I'm still really in that town and those things hurting Gee are real? What if I'm trying to convince myself I'm crazy because it's safer that way?" His thoughts spilled from his lips like water, but even when he closed his mouth, his mind didn't stop.

_ What if Gerard was really stuck there? _ Frank could feel the softness of the sheets beneath his fingertips, remembered the glass shattering as their car had hit the ground with him in the driver's seat, but he could also hear the echoes of Gerard's screams in his ears and feel the warmth of Gerard's blood, spilling out over his hands. If that was real, if Gerard was stuck in some kind of Hell destined to be torn apart over and over again, then Frank would never be able to live with himself if he left his friend there to suffer, alone, for an eternity.

The choice was impossible: a world where he had to live with his best friend's blood on his hands, or a world of nightmares, but a world where Frank had a chance to save him.

"I'm sorry," Frank whispered, voice cracking as he met the doctor's eyes, "I can't take that risk."

“No, Frank-“

Frank closed his eyes on his doctor's face, devastation written all over it, and when he opened them again, he was met with the sound of liquid dripping from the ceiling and the stench of rotting flesh in his nostrils.

Tightening his grip on his crowbar, Frank stood.

\---

[1] _ Veritas vos liberabit _ \- Latin, meaning 'the truth shall set you free'


End file.
